3 year old who wont eat

Question
My 3 year old has gotten progressivly pickier over the last year and a half with food.  The doctor has always said that toddlers won't starve themselves, but my son eats just enough to keep going.  A typical day is a couple bites of pancake for breakfast, one slice of toast for lunch, and a plum for dinner.  That's it. He loves milk, but there's only about 7 foods he'll eat at all anymore.  His growth has slowed considerably from age 2 to 3 and he often tells me he doesn't like food. I don't know what to do.  We give him a multivitamin every day, but I don't know how to get him to enjoy eating.  He runs from the dinner table and gags when he sees me eating foods.  We have him on zantac to see if that will help his appetite.  We're unbelievably frustrated.  Please help!

Answer
Hi AJ, First I understand how picky eaters are a challenge to parental patience, but remember this is a phase and it should pass.
Kids learn from watching their parents doing tasks of daily living including eating. Make it a habit of filling your own plate and sitting down and enjoying it. If he doesn't want to eat what the rest of the family is eating, then he doesn't eat. If he doesn't want to eat, he still has to sit at the table and wait for the meal to end, period. If he gags, ignore it. Set rules and abide by them. Kids need to know that a certain structure exists regarding meals and that certain standards of behavior are expected.
If you are anxious about what he eats, he picks up on that and may become even pickier. If he is throwing tantrums at dinner or mealtime, ignore it as much as possible and assure him you understand he might be angry, but he is not to disrupt the mealtime for everyone else.
At mealtime offer a variety of nutritious foods along with the foods you know he will eat. He may take a bite of the new food, if he sees others eating it. If he doesn't eat vegetables, offer vegetables with a tasty dip, or let him choose the vegetables for that night's dinner. He may not eat them, but you can tell him he did a good job picking out the vegetable and that it was very tasty.
Try not to get into the habit of making him something different, you are not a short order cook and don't let him fill up on milk, three 8 ounces per day is enough.
Taste the Zantac medication. it use to have a bitter after taste, and I've never heard of it being used for loss of appetite, so hopefully it's not causing him to have more problems by taking it. In my opinion, if he doesn't need it, it's not going to make him eat.
Hope that helps, and hopefully his eating problems end soon. Laura Kraemer,Slimkids.com  

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